


When the Hurlyburly's Done

by DaughterofProspero



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Body Horror, Magic, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Potions, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:57:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5929261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofProspero/pseuds/DaughterofProspero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...What are these<br/>So wither'd and so wild in their attire,<br/>That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,<br/>And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught<br/>That man may question?..."</p><p>The Three Witches gather to see what will become of the Thane of Glamis and his honourable friend.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Hurlyburly's Done

Broiling murk smelling of fetid heath overflows the pot. Bruise-coloured liquid sizzles down the sides of the caldron dribbling into the open flame below. Steam rises, bubbles pop wetly upon the concoction, and so the witches are summoned.

From the steam emerges three creatures of clairvoyance, soothsaying sisters, wreathed in smoke and shadows. They are the shapes behind bending bulrushes, reddened reflections in blood-soaked battlefields, ghost-stories that none dare speak aloud. Spindly sisters old as nature with crooked frames and quicksand prophecies.

Robed in patchwork cloaks that contour hints of inhuman limbs and spines they converge. The sound of a million bat wings pours from the witches wrinkled mouths, leathery and ancient. Embers shimmer bright beneath the cauldron, coaxed to white hot heat by the enigmatic incantation. A hand knobbed with too many knuckles tosses some unknown ingredient into the pot. The second sister follows suite, as does the third. With every addition, the cauldron’s contents hiss madly.

The penultimate ingredient is fetched with brutal efficiency. Sister two bares her gleaming knife-point teeth and slides her writhing tongue between them. With not so much as a grunt of pain she bites down on the appendage and the tip plus some falls with an anticlimactic _splash_ into the pot, sinking out of sight. What cannot be called blood congeals quickly on the remnants of the sister’s tongue, gathering until it forms a new and mismatched muscle as though someone crudely sewed a gamy strip of meat onto the root. Flicking the new tongue a few times, she steps away from the cauldron and lets her sisters finish the recipe.

Witches one and three each produce an item: A hair coated in blood. The locks are dropped into the pot. All three sisters step away and review their handiwork.

Though the fire still burns brightly, steam ceases to rise as soon as the bloodied hair touches the now still surface of the liquid. Visibly, the mixture separates into two parts: a layer of sediment that falls to the bottom and a top remaining clear as water. From the very bottom of the pot, the second witch’s old tongue – now steeped in potent potion – floats upwards and twitches once sending out small waves. The sisters gather close to observe.

Rippling scenes play out before them of the men to whom the hair and blood belongs. Thane of Cawdor slaying foes left and right on a war-marked heath. Then a second man, at the Thane’s back, valiantly covering his superior. The tongue twitches again, and ripples erase the present. Now the future begins to show.

Thane of Cawdor greeted by a grateful and aging King. No, now on that same King’s word Thane of Glamis is he. Secretive whispers between husband and wife. Daggers glinting in moonlight. A bloodied bedsheet weighed down by a kingly corpse. Golden crowns upon the heads of Scotland’s new King and Queen.

One more twitch. A man shaking the hand of his friend in farewell. A man travelling with his son. Daggers glinting in the moonlight. A broken body at the bottom of a ditch. A scant trail of tears from a now orphaned boy running, running.

The tongue goes still with rigour mortis and sinks back down to the depths of the cauldron. The liquid becomes murky and begins to bubble once again. Rickety croaks that might be laughter fly across the heath as the sisters slink away to meet their newest protagonist.

**Author's Note:**

> Wasn't super sure what to do with this, just liked magic (as is evidenced by my multiple fairy-centric fics.) and then I was like "yo, what if she bit off her tongue to add it to the cauldron" and then I was like "what the fuck" and then I was like "...do it..."  
> So that happened.  
> Creepy ladies, they are.  
> Creepy creepy ladies.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
